In die konteks van Goodhart se boek skryf Tim Marshall: “Britain’s Labour Party, the traditional party of the working class, is increasingly that of middle-class ‘progressives’, many of whom will lean towards the Anywheres’ world view. In the 1966 general election Harold Wilson’s Labour Party won power with approximately 11 million working-class votes and 2 million from the middle classes; in 2015 the figures stood at about 4.2 million working-class votes and 4.4 million middle-class ones. This changing pattern is down to a range of factors, not least the decline in traditional working-class jobs, but it is also because the party that traditionally concentrated on matters of vital importance to the working class – jobs, housing and crime – has appeared to focus more on other issues, including identity politics” (Tim Marshall, Divided: Why we’re living in an age of walls, London: Elliott and Thompson, 2018, 272p; Amazon Kindle $14.36, 2993).

Die Britse Arbeidersparty kan dus deesdae nie sonder meer met die laer klasse en die Konserwatiewe Party met die hoër klasse geassosieer word nie. Goodhart skryf: “Class cross-dressing between the two main parties continued, underlining one of the main arguments of the book that we are seeing greater political convergence between classes and value groups on economic issues and greater divergence on ‘security and identity’ cultural issues … Overall, better-off voters still tended to back the Tories [Conservative Party] but … the Tory working class vote rose dramatically from 32 per cent in 2015 to 44 per cent in 2017 which was higher than Labour’s share (42 per cent)” (Goodhart, Kindle 98). Dít het die ja-stem vir Brexit moontlik gemaak. “If there is a paramount reason for Britain’s shock decision to leave the EU it is the seething discontent of a large slice of public opinion created by twenty years of historically unprecedented immigration and the insouciant response of the Anywhere-dominated political class to this change – a change that never appeared in an election manifesto and was never chosen by anyone” (2350). “Attitudes to immigration have probably become the single biggest litmus test of Anywhere/Somewhere difference” (695).

Goodhart is ‘n joernalis wat ‘n lid van die Arbeidersparty en linksgesind was. “For most of my adult life I have been firmly in the Anywhere camp” (511). Anders as in Suid-Afrika, waar groot getalle blankes sedert 1994 in gewaande eiebelang en weens lafhartigheid hulle al hoe meer links voordoen, is daar in die Westerse wêreld, onder meer weens die intog van nie-Westerse inkommers, ‘n duidelike neiging tot konserwatisme en na regs. Goodhart het in lofwaardige mate polities tot inkeer gekom, veral vanweë die navorsing wat hy oor immigrasie gedoen het. “I … began to detach myself, intellectually, from orthodox liberalism” (511). “Liberalism … is stupid about culture … and belonging” (526). “While colour-blind liberalism demands, rightly, that everyone be treated the same, that does not mean that everyone is the same” (2520). “I became convinced that the left had got on the wrong side of the argument on mass immigration (too enthusiastic), and integration of minorities and national identity (too indifferent)” (519). “One persuasive anti-integration argument runs like this: given how important ethnicity evidently remains to both minorities and majorities (look at the extent of white flight) what is wrong with some degree of separation?” (2555). “We need to become more ‘integration literate’ and learn to talk about ethno-cultural differences in the same way that we talk about social class differences” (2660).

Nêrensmense is diegene wat geen sterk identiteitsaanvoeling het nie en vir lief met massa-immigrasie neem. Goodhart skaar hom in groot mate by Êrensmense wat etnies-kulturele groepsgebondenheid koester. Die twee groot gebeure in 2016 wat sy teks beïnvloed, is die verkiesing van Donald Trump as Amerikaanse president en Brexit, die referendumuitslag waarvolgens die Verenigde Koninkryk uit die Europese Unie gaan tree (72). “Illegal Mexican immigration into the US started as a tickle in the late 1970s and in another twenty years the US will be one third Hispanic – one of the factors behind the rise of Donald Trump. As Paul Scheffer has put it – we in Europe tend to underestimate our ability to control our borders and vastly overestimate our ability to integrate people into our complex, liberal, modern societies” (1763).

“My explanation in miniature ran like this. A large minority group of the highly educated and mobile – the Anywheres – who tend to value autonomy and openness and comfortably surf social change have recently come to dominate our society and politics. There is also a larger but less influential group – the Somewheres – who are more rooted and less well educated, who value security and familiarity* and are more connected to group identities than Anywheres. Somewheres feel that their more socially conservative intuitions have been excluded from the public space in recent decades, which has destabilised our politics and led to the Brexit and Trump backlashes” (72).

Naas Goodhart se eie opsomming van sy boek (voorlaaste paragraaf hier bo) is daar die volgende bruikbare samevatting deur Tim Marshall: “‘Anywheres dominate our culture and society. They tend to do well at school and then usually move from home to a residential university in their late teens and on to a career in the professions that might take them to London, or even abroad for a year or two.’ The Anywheres can feel at home wherever they go, whether that’s Berlin, New York, Shanghai or Mumbai. On the other hand the Somewheres tend to have a much more clearly defined sense of identity. Like the majority of people in Britain, they live within 20 miles of where they grew up and identify with locality, region and country – they are more ‘rooted'” (Marshall 2979).

Marshall gaan voort: “Among the Somewheres are many whose jobs have slowly disappeared as a result of the economic changes linked to globalization and whose working-class culture has recently been marginalized, especially in national discourse. The word ‘cosmopolitan’ comes from Greek roots meaning ‘citizen of the world’. We are indeed all one people, but it is a challenge indeed to persuade someone who lives near where they grew up, has a strong local identity and does not possess work skills that are transferable across continents that they are ‘cosmopolitan'” (2986)

Marshall skryf: “Goodhart suggests that up to 25 per cent of the UK population are Anywheres, about 50 per cent Somewheres and the rest Inbetweeners. These are approximations and rough definitions, but they are useful in understanding modern Britain through the prism not just of class but of world view. Many ‘progressive’ Anywheres might be embarressed about expressing love of country, Somewheres less so – their world was an accepted ‘fact’ in British society until at least the late 1970s, but the rise of the multicultural society, parallel cultures [societies] and the spread of higher education has challenged it” (2986).

Marshall: “These different identities – whether global or more rooted – have been brought into conflict with one another in debates about identity, nationalism and, yes, immigration before and after the Brexit vote. For decades this was in many ways a hidden discourse, as political and media circles seemed to refuse to engage with it. But nevertheless, huge numbers of the population were discussing it the length and breadth of the land” (3000). (Verdere plekverwysings is na Goodhart se boek; nie Marshall s’n nie.)

In Brittanje voel die meeste inwoners, soos die Afrikaners, vervreem van hulle land. “Nearly 60 per cent say that a neighbourhood that is one quarter ethnic minority or more would make them feel uncomfortable” (1001).”For several years now more than half of British people have agreed with this statement (and similar ones): ‘Britain has changed in recent times beyond recognition, it sometimes feels like a foreign country and this makes me feel uncomfortable.’ Older people, the least well-educated and the least affluent are most likely to assent, but there is quite widespread support from other groups too” (298).

In die literatuur is daar die neiging om die linkses, die kulturele marxiste, as oopkop te beskryf en die konserwatiewes of regses as toekop. “Much of the British commentariat see an ‘open vs closed’ divide as the new political fault-line” (305). “Anywheres … have portable ‘achieved’ identities, based on educational and career success which makes them gradually comfortable and confident with new places and people. Somewheres are more rooted and usually have ‘ascribed’ identities … based on group belonging and particular places, which is why they often find rapid change more unsettling” (314). Afrikaners het steeds nie werklik tot verhaal gekom na die verraad in 1990/94 nie.

“I have assembled a loose Anywhere ideology that I call ‘progressive individualism’ … Anywheres are comfortable with immigration, European integration and the spead of human rights legislation, all of which tend to dilute the claims of national citizenship” (342). “By contrast, the Somewheres are more socially conservative and communitarian by instinct … They are moderately nationalistic, and if English quite likely to identify as such. They feel uncomfortable about many aspects of cultural and economic change – such as mass immigration … and more fluid gender roles” (349). “They still believe that there is such a thing as Society” (403). “Most traditional societies are ‘sociocentric’, meaning they place the needs of groups and institutions first” (754). Êrensmense begeer “a more stable, ordered world” (410). “A better globalisation is possible and a world order based on many Somewhere nation states cooperating together is far preferable to one big supranational Anywhere” (448).

Kritiek is uitgespreek op Goodhart se “simplifying, binary Anywhere-Somewhere divide. It was certainly a useful simplification … But there is, in fact, plenty of light and shade in my more detailed description of the main value groups inside and I also describe a large Inbetweener group” (135) van 25%, soos hier bo genoem.

“If it is wrong to discriminate within a nation [country] on the basis of the accident of race, why is it not equally wrong to discriminate in favour of one’s fellow nationals on the basis of the accident of nationality? … if the nation state is an illegitimate expression of bigotry, like racism, then the legitimacy of democracy and the welfare state, which today exist only in national forms, is also thrown into doubt” (2133). “The moral equality of all humans is taken by many Global Villagers to mean that national borders and boundaries have become irrelevant and that any partiality to one’s fellow nationals is morally flawed. But this is to conflate two separate things. It does not follow from the idea of human equality that we have the same obligations to all humans. Somewheres and Inbetweeners and even many Anywheres believe that this universalist ethos must be tempered by moral particularism: all humans are equal but they are not all equally important to us; our obligations and allegiances ripple out from family and friends to stranger fellow-citizens in our neighbourhoods and towns, then to nations and finally to all humanity” (2203). Dit is ‘n geval van “specialness but not superiority” (2246).

Teen die einde van sy boek probeer Goodhart op ‘n halfhartige of onoortuigende manier om ‘n Anywhere/Somewhere-sintese te bewerkstellig: “The philosopher Isaiah Berlin [1909-1997] said that people generally want many of the same things: security, recognition, love, meaningful work, sufficient wealth and freedom to live a good life in the many ways that can be conceived. And to achieve those things for the greatest number of people requires politics to be informed by aspects of both Anywhere freedom and Somewhere rootedness” (4400). Dit lyk asof Berlin hier poog om ‘n geykte Westerse siening universeel geldig te probeer maak.